Attention Modulates Gamma-band Oscillations Differently in the Human Lateral Occipital Cortex and Fusiform Gyrus

We studied the existence, localization and attentional modulation of gamma-band oscillatory activity (30–130 Hz) in the human intracranial region. Two areas known to play a key role in visual object processing: the lateral occipital (LO) cortex and the fusiform gyrus. These areas consistently displa...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) N.Y. 1991), 2005-05, Vol.15 (5), p.654-662
Main Authors: Tallon-Baudry, Catherine, Bertrand, Olivier, Hénaff, Marie-Anne, Isnard, Jean, Fischer, Catherine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
attention
Attention - physiology
Biological Clocks - physiology
Brain Mapping - methods
Electroencephalography - methods
Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology
extrastriate cortex
Female
Humans
intracranial EEG
Male
Middle Aged
Occipital Lobe - physiology
synchrony
Temporal Lobe - physiology
vision
Visual Perception - physiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We studied the existence, localization and attentional modulation of gamma-band oscillatory activity (30–130 Hz) in the human intracranial region. Two areas known to play a key role in visual object processing: the lateral occipital (LO) cortex and the fusiform gyrus. These areas consistently displayed large gamma oscillations during visual stimulus encoding, while other extrastriate areas remained systematically silent, across 14 patients and 291 recording sites scattered throughout extrastriate visual cortex. The lateral extent of the responsive regions was small, in the range of 5 mm. Induced gamma oscillations and evoked potentials were not systematically co-localized. LO and the fusiform gyrus displayed markedly different patterns of attentional modulation. In the fusiform gyrus, attention enhanced stimulus-driven gamma oscillations. In LO, attention increased the baseline level of gamma oscillations during the expectation period preceding the stimulus. Subsequent gamma oscillations produced by attended stimuli were smaller than those produced by unattended, irrelevant stimuli. Attentional modulations of gamma oscillations in LO and the fusiform gyrus were thus very different, both in their time-course (preparatory period and/or stimulus processing) and direction of modulation (increase or decrease). Our results thus suggest that the functional role of gamma oscillations depends on the area in which they occur.
ISSN:1047-3211
1460-2199
DOI:10.1093/cercor/bhh167